“For all the gods’ sakes—” Weyland began.
“We’ll be careful, Weyland,” Jack said. “I promise you.”
Weyland looked at Grace, hunched into her chair, and the expression on his face made tears spring to Silvius’ eyes.
No one saw Malcolm at the door, edging back into the shadows.
The group broke up within minutes, and while Noah was talking to Jack, Weyland managed a few words with Grace as they waited in the Daimler.
“Grace, are you sure you want to keep on helping Jack? I am terrified for you.” Weyland was leaning over the driver’s seat, looking at Grace seated in the back.
“I enjoy helping Jack, father. I know it is risky, and I am careful, but I think I would go mad if I stayed in the apartment.”
“I do not know,” Weyland said softly, “if I am more afraid of what the imps might do to you, or of what Jack might. Grace, Grace, please be careful.”
She shifted forward on the car seat and kissed his cheek softly. “I will be careful.”
Later, when the others had gone, Silvius sat back in his chair, his whisky glass refilled, and regarded his son speculatively.
“What do you think about what Weyland said?” he asked.
Jack sighed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “I don’t truly know. I don’t doubt what he saw, but there are so many interpretations. Gods alone know what those imps may think they are doing. They could just as easily have seen the shadow and decided to worship it, and sacrifice to it. It doesn’t mean that the shadow is connected to the murders at all.”
“On the other hand…”
“On the other hand, if it is connected…”
Silvius downed his whisky. “Jack, be careful. Not only of the shadow, but of Weyland. Weyland fears for his daughter, and he fears losing Noah. Be careful.”
Jack grunted, refilling Silvius’ glass.
“Now,” said Silvius, “for something a little lighter, if no less worrying for Weyland. What’s going on with you and Grace?”
Jack managed an easy grin, which didn’t fool his father for an instant. “She’s helping me to discover—”
“Don’t feed me that line, Jack. Something else is going on. And I’m intrigued about the girl. She’s at the centre of this puzzle. How is it that she can help you plot out the difference, and not Noah? What’s going on?”
Jack sighed. “I don’t really know, Silvius. She’s…I don’t know what to think of her.” He paused, thinking, then leaned forward in his chair.
“I should have spoken to you of this earlier,” Jack said, “but I thought that perhaps if I could discover more about Grace myself, then…but she’s such a troubling conundrum. Silvius, I remember you telling me once, and Membricus…remember him?”
Silvius nodded. Membricus had been Jack’s tutor and lover when he had lived as Brutus and had been involved with Brutus’ initial training as a Kingman.
“Well,” Jack said, “Membricus also told me that sometimes a Kingman encounters a Mistress whose power precisely fits his. A perfect, harmonious match. A hand-in-glove fit, or whatever other cliche you want to use. A Mistress who would so seamlessly complement his power that whatever Game they danced together would be flawless, more powerful beyond knowing.”
Silvius’ mouth had dropped open. “You’re not telling me that…”
“Aye. Grace is my match. Her power, that is. She is my perfect dancing partner.”
Her power, that is. As stunned as Silvius was, he couldn’t help but wonder why Jack felt the need to add that qualifier.
“Not Noah?” Silvius said.
Jack sat back in his chair, and studied his hands as Grace had studied hers earlier. He did not respond.
Silvius’ sense of astonishment deepened. All Jack had ever wanted was Noah. They’d been tied together with such bonds of hate and love, power and ambition, that he could hardly believe now that Jack just sat there and studied his hands indifferently at the question.
“When you returned home from your exile,” said Silvius, “you appeared determined to get Noah back. I don’t see that man sitting before me now.”
Jack took a long time in responding, and when he did his voice was very soft, and he would not look at his father. “I am tired of it,” he said. “Tired of loving her and wanting her and never managing to achieve her.”
He looked up. “And when I slept with her on the night of the Great Marriage…all I felt was disappointment. A wish to be somewhere else. Noah keeps dropping hints, subconscious or not, I am not sure, that if I put a little effort into it, well, then, maybe I might have a chance.”
“And you haven’t roused yourself for that effort?”
“Catling spoke to me after the Great Marriage,” Jack said. “She asked me, and forgive the vulgarism, but I only repeat her words, whether the fuck was worth the wait. And you know what?”
“It wasn’t?”
Jack shook his head. “I told Catling that it had been, but, no. It wasn’t. Not really. Three thousand years is too long to yearn for someone and never achieve her.”
“And especially when that someone has such a lovely enigmatic daughter. Who is your perfect, harmonious match.”
Jack was silent.
“Jack, what’s happening here?”
“I don’t know.”
Silvius doubted that very much. “Grace is very important, isn’t she?”
Jack gave a half shrug. “She’s at the centre of everything. Tied to Catling by hex; my absolute match in power; the only one besides me who can prise open the secrets of this shadow hanging over London; beloved of ancient druids—”
“You must mean Malcolm, from your comment earlier.”
“Yes.” Jack told his father about Malcolm. “He has an astounding interest in her, but won’t tell me why. And…”
“And?”
“You know that Noah secreted four of the kingship bands inside the Faerie?”
“Yes.”
“They’re not there, Silvius. They never left Grace. They’re resting within her flesh.”
“Gods!” Silvius was so shocked his empty whisky glass slipped from his grip and rolled over the carpet.
Jack rose, picked it up, refilled both it and his own, then sat down again, handing Silvius his glass.
“She’s an enigma,” Jack said with a wry grin.
“Is she dangerous?”
Jack hesitated. “No.” He saw his father’s raised eyebrow. “I hesitated only because I honestly can’t believe she is not dangerous, but she isn’t. Did you hear that she appeared at my marking?”
Silvius nodded.
“Well, I tested her then. My marks, which come from the land itself, examined her, and they found…”
Silvius understood what it was Jack wasn’t saying. “And they found her instantly—” he paused, wondering how to put it “—compatible?”
“Yes.”
Silvius took a hefty sip of his whisky. “Jack, I really don’t know how to ask this, or even if I should, but…what do you feel for Grace?”
He thought Jack would never answer. Jack sat back in his chair, his eyes on his whisky as he swilled it about his glass.
“Silvius,” he said finally, “I don’t want to fuck up again. I really don’t.”
“Are you sure you can break the habit?”
Jack laughed softly. “No, I’m not sure.” He sobered. “And thus…Silvius, I don’t want to hurt Grace, and I don’t want to mess things up any more than I already have, and I don’t know if I can bear the pain of loving again. I don’t know if I have the energy for it.”
“And yet she is your perfect, harmonious power match. And she can understand this strange labyrinthine puzzle in a way that Noah can’t. And you say she has the bands concealed within her flesh. Jack, does she know they’re there?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t something I’ve broached with her. I can’t believe that Noah doesn’t know.”
Silvius let that last pass. “Jack, I don’t think you can risk letting Grace slip away and I think she’s stronger than you think she is. I also think you’re terrified to get too close to her in case you learn to love her.”
Silvius thought Jack was already mostly there, but decided it was better to carry on the pretence that Jack might actually have some say in whether he tipped over the edge or not.
“Silvius, what do I do?”
“Jack, let me give you some advice. You need to make it perfectly clear to both Grace and Noah what you have made clear to me tonight—that Noah is no longer the centre and meaning of your existence. Both Grace and her mother need to know that. That doesn’t mean committing to Grace—”
Jack grunted.
“It bloody doesn’t, Jack. Stop trying to find excuses for procrastinating. You need to do it, for the reason that knowing is the only thing that is going to bring Grace out of her shell. Damn it, from what you’ve told me and from what I’ve observed tonight, Grace is so intimidated by your and Noah’s history—and, yes, there’s jealousy there as well, but that’s only a small part of it—that she is never going to fly, until she knows there is room in the sky for her.”